WORLD CUP ’90 : Argentina Will Be Missing Four Starters : Title game: Penalties will keep Caniggia, three others out of the rematch against West Germany.

Argentina will meet West Germany for the World Cup title Sunday without four starters, including striker Claudio Caniggia, whose goals helped get the team to the championship game.

Caniggia, who scored Argentina’s winning goal in the second round against Brazil and the tying goal in Tuesday’s semifinal victory over Italy, will not be allowed to play in the championship match because of the yellow card he received for a deliberate hand ball in the game in Naples.

Also suspended are Argentine midfielders Ricardo Giusti and Julio Olarticoechea and defender Sergio Batista.

Giusti was tossed out of Tuesday’s match for elbowing Italian midfielder Roberto Baggio in the face. French referee Michel Vautrot’s back was turned, but the foul was spotted by Danish linesman Peter Mikkelsen, who became the target of extensive verbal abuse from the Argentine players and bench for pointing it out.

Olarticoechea and Batista each had been cautioned in Argentina’s quarterfinal match against Yugoslavia, and each received another yellow card (and automatic suspension) on Tuesday.

Just how Argentine Coach Carlos Bilardo will replace the four players is not yet known. “It’s a problem,” is all Bilardo would say when asked that question Tuesday night.

Without Caniggia, Bilardo has no one with true speed to penetrate the German defense and to run to the passes sent in by Diego Maradona. Batista is a veteran of the 1986 championship team, and his experience was needed against the West Germans, losers to Argentina in the final four years ago.

Franz Beckenbauer, West Germany’s coach, said the loss of the four Argentine players will not necessarily make his team’s task any easier.

“Argentina is a very, very good team,” he said in Turin Wednesday night after West Germany’s victory over England. “No game is easy. We don’t underestimate Argentina. They have a lot of other players.

“I just hope it will be as good a game on Sunday as it was tonight.”

In Rome Wednesday, long faces were a common sight because, in the words of one cab driver, “the World Cup is finished.”

Italy’s loss to Argentina had not been expected, and Italian Coach Azeglio Vicini tried to explain it by saying: “In the long run, we suffered from fatigue, but also because we always tried to satisfy the crowd.”

What Vicini meant was that Italy, instead of playing its usual defensive style in the World Cup, had tried to be more entertaining and to attack more often.

“Playing at home didn’t help the team,” he said. “It forced us to use an attacking tactic.”

In Argentina, the defending champion’s return to the World Cup title match was greeted with delight. One newspaper called Italy “just one more morsel on the way to the great celebration under preparation to take home the World Cup.”

Brazil’s Jornal da Tarde was more succinct. One headline in the Sao Paolo paper stated bluntly: “God is an Argentine.”